Not While the Fires are Still Burning

It took a Frenchman to point out to Americans their genius for community. Almost 200 years ago Alexis de Tocqueville spent nine months traveling throughout the United States. Out of that came his two-volume study, Democracy in America, in which he argued that the strength of the young republic derived from Americans’ penchant for creating voluntary associations to solve common problems. He particularly admired the New England town where all the citizens gathered to govern themselves.

Twenty-five years ago, political scientist Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone, in which he discussed the significant decline in Americans’ community involvement, a decline he observed in all the kinds of voluntary associations that de Tocqueville had described as this country’s unique national strength. Putnam also noted that the decline was accompanied by a growing distrust of the institutions of government.

One of the main reasons that people join together in voluntary associations is to do things they could not otherwise do by themselves. Moreover, because they are acting with others, rather than alone, the things they accomplish have a far better chance of getting widespread support. This is what makes a community. In particular, when people find themselves facing a life-threatening situation, they quickly realize that if they do not all pull together, they will face disaster. This is what holds the community together during tough times.

I write this as Los Angeles is facing a new onslaught of high winds over burning dry land. The situation has already become a disaster for hundreds of thousands of people left homeless. With the new waves of fire and wind, and the increasing numbers of dead, it is now beyond a disaster; it is a tragedy.

Yet, with the flames continuing to reignite and spread, with firefighters literally burned out, water in short supply, and residents terrified, the reaction from 3,000 miles away seems less to join together to help put the fires out and rebuild a burning city, than to look for scapegoats to blame. Instead of calls for unity, we are treated to puerile, vulgar and inflammatory nicknames and efforts to rile up the partisans. Instead of compassion, we are confronted with a cold-heartedness that will make bringing us together in the future both more difficult and more unlikely.

Most news reports have focused on the big picture: over 40,000 acres burned; 150,000 people evacuated; winds gusting up to 100 mph; prolonged drought; 24 dead and many more expected. That is the breadth of this disaster. The personal stories tell the depth of the tragedy. Which is why it is far easier to come together in a small community, where the victims are our neighbors, than in a large country, where the people are strangers. But what is a nation but a community writ large? What are these united states but a community of communities? E pluribus unum, “out of many, one,” is our country’s motto. It’s right there on our money, which they say we Americans worship above all else.

Yes, the size of the entity makes a big difference, but the values should not change. During the Great Depression and World War II, Franklin Roosevelt gave a series of informal radio addresses, which were called Fireside Chats, in which he invited millions of listeners into his living room and spoke to them as neighbors. He sought to make a national community during some of the country’s hardest years.

There will be time enough for constructive (and, I have little doubt, destructive) assessments as we set out – as a country – to rebuild much of southwest California when the fires are finally out.

A Tale of Two Doormats

January 6, 2025. Fear seems to have become the emotion of these times, and not without reason. Be afraid, we are told, of the violence in the streets and on the internet, of the immigrants at the border and the enemies within, of the different and of the unknown. Above all, be afraid for the future.

When danger is everywhere, how can we feel safe?

One response is to shrink our world – to make it as small, sheltered, and homogenous as possible – so that we can more easily distinguish our allies from our enemies. “There are three kinds of people,” my late friend Sam once said to me, “those I know and I like; those I know and I don’t like; and those I don’t know and I don’t like.” And so, we are taught to avoid people who don’t look like us, who don’t talk like us, who don’t dress like us. In both our real and our virtual lives, we increasingly seek out communities of people who seem just like us. In times when the threats seem especially great, we turn for protection to leaders who tell us they are tough.

Fear has always been critical to human survival, and we need to pay attention to it. But the powerful few have too often exploited our so they can keep us compliant. And when they have scared us into silence, they offer us “consumer goods in exchange for mindlessness,” as Timothy Snyder writes in On Freedom. He was describing Soviet puppets in eastern Europe in the 1970s. Today, in this country, “Drill, baby, drill” has become the mantra of those who offer us cheap gasoline in exchange for the future of the earth. This is not a good deal for my grandchildren.

Fear is not the only way to engage with the world. Remember the excitement of going to an unknown place for the first time and savoring the cacophony of sounds and colors and curious customs? Tourism wasn’t even a word until 1811, and now it’s a $2 trillion industry. And while the tourist business seems bent on sanitizing the experiences of its “customers,” the attraction for many is still to escape the known and the safe, to be open to the new, and to hope for the unexpected.

Or remember when the mats at front doors said “Welcome” instead of “Beware of Dog.”

In reality, we thrive on openness and diversity, a word that Project 2025 has promised to delete from our politics. But beset by fear, we seek refuge in safe places and small pleasures. We are apprehensive about the future, but we are tired of the acrimony, and so we turn inward. Openness. Generosity. Wonder. Kindness. Compassion. Integrity. These are some of the values we jeopardize when we do so.

Above all, perhaps, we worry that we lack courage. But courage need not be heroic. There are ways it can assert itself besides lying down in front of a tank or getting hauled off to prison. For many of us, it can be simply trying to hold onto our values in these times, both when we are afraid and when we are comfortable. That will take courage enough.

The Second Term

I first met Peter Rousmaniere in the fall of 1959 at a small school in a small town in the middle of Massachusetts. Over the intervening years he has become a wide-ranging thinker, with a special expertise in workman’s compensation and immigration issues, a combination that gives him a unique perspective on the three-way intersection of immigration, labor, and health care. Recently, he sent me the following description of what Donald Trump’s second term might look like, particularly in its early stages. It is the most insightful analysis I have read to date.

We are seeing signs of Trump's classic style of leadership, more organized and more forceful than the first time around. I found the best depiction of his style in a book on group psychology, Mind and Society, written by Pascal Boyer, who is a specialist in African tribal culture. In 2019, I compared Boyer’s depiction of tribal leadership and Trump's behavior. I'm updating that below with specific references to what we have seen in the last few weeks.

The Bargaining King

Trump frames his leadership story as an economic success. He exploits popular beliefs about economics, namely that economics involves bargaining in which a win for one is a visible loss for the other – a zero-sum game. This is why tariffs came up so quickly and will be a constant theme, as they represent a stylized form of bargaining that looks to people like a zero sum (rather than a win-win) game. We already see that Trump is enjoying a public victory in his tariff demands on Canada, where [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau announced that Canadians are spending a lot more money on border surveillance. Trudeau is Trump's kind of foil: a pretty boy whom you can throw onto the mat with one clean, quick maneuver. With Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, we are seeing something quite different – which seems to be a pattern among women heads of state regarding Trump. Basically, they don't take any shit. Mexico has a strong bargaining position with the United States in several ways, not least of which is that the country is trending toward building very strong economic ties with China. Sheinbaum will not be thrown onto the mat

Stripping Away Government Control

Trump promotes the right of private ownership to have its way. It isn't so much a dislike of public programs, such as Medicare, as an instinctive need to have good things flow from him. “L'etat, c'est moi." This includes stripping away government bureaucracy and replacing it with personal power. (Trump's billionaire and Heritage Foundation flocks must consequently contend with his progressive impulses, which are based on his need to have all good things flow from him.) Count on Trump trying to sell the Postal Service to private parties. This will be a grand, visible game in which, dressed in regal clothes, he will dispense with the Postal Service as if it were a piece of land he’s granting to a vassal. When privatization has occurred, there have been reduced service frequency (such as no Saturday delivery), closures of postal facilities (such as thousands of village post offices), price increases (such as doubling first-class postage), and workforce reductions (by as much as a third).

One big show of stripping away government control will be the destruction of environmental regulation by government. He knows that people pay close attention to the price of gasoline as a proxy for the state of the economy; and he characterizes environmental initiatives as the work of a cabal. We are hearing a lot about how this cabal has constrained the production of oil.

Another Trump support of private ownership is to dispense with any serious regulation of Internet giants and artificial intelligence. It is not well understood by the public that these giants and AI depend upon complete discretion to use of the bonanza of free-to-grasp data as they see fit. A key feature of economic growth, at the company or national level, is the new provision of really cheap resources. Social media and artificial intelligence draw upon essential resources that are virtually or entirely free. And these giants demand complete autonomy on how to apply these resources. Thus, we see a shocking degree of steps by big business to bend their knee.

With regard to cryptocurrencies, Trump has perceived that the public – particularly young men –  view cryptocurrencies as their way to make a fortune. There will be a crypto bubble, enabled in part by a reversal in government policy of crypto. This will be easy to do because Elizabeth Warren’s and SEC policies, which suppressed crypto, were out of date and subject for reversal at some point in the near future. Trump will be like the baseball player who walks home from third with the bases loaded and declares he hit a home run.

Moral Degenerates and Traitors

It is important for Trump to find individuals and groups he can call moral degenerates. He has used the fascist depiction of people with impure blood to describe poor migrants. A key feature of tribal leadership, which Trump has adopted, is the castigation and punishment of disloyal people and parties – people he can call traitors. Fauci is one of them, but there are thousands of others on a private list he or one of his retainers has.

Free Riders

This group includes perceived beneficiaries of DEI, such as Black presidents of Ivy League colleges, as well as pretty much the entire immigrant community. Biden presented Trump an enormous gift when he admitted into the United States millions of temporary visa holders and large numbers of asylum seekers. This surge, amounting to at least three million people in the last three years, generated tons of local news stories about the demand for shelter and education, whose costs were borne by American cities and states. Reducing overall immigration, however, puts Trump in a conflicted situation. On the one hand, in his view every immigrant is a free rider. On the other hand, thousands of businesses depend on these immigrants – from high tech firms to Texas home builders to Wisconsin dairy farmers. And there is only so much he can do by executive action that would not be bottled up in lawsuits. (I believe that mass deportation will collapse early in 2025.) So, Trump needs Congress, in particular the Senate, to pass a major front-page story on immigration reform. As someone who follows immigration closely, I expect a Senate initiative sometime in 2025.

Merry Christmas

We’re getting near that beautiful Christmas season that people don’t talk about anymore,” said Donald Trump early in his first term. “They don’t use the word Christmas because it’s not politically correct. . . .Well, guess what? We’re saying Merry Christmas again.

Thank you very much, Sir, but I’ve been saying Merry Christmas for almost 80 years. Why do you feel the need to take credit for everything?

Twenty or so years ago, Bill O’Reilly warned us that “creeping secularism and pressure groups like the ACLU” had declared “War on Christmas” and were demanding that creches be removed from the public square. The right counterattacked with a vengeance. And here we are.

For many, this weaponization of Christmas has injected an unwanted level of anxiety into the holiday season. Do I say the politically correct but blandly meaningless “Happy Holidays” or the ethnically offensive but jolly “Merry Christmas?” What is a well-meaning fellow to do?

In truth, Christmas has been problematic since the beginning. Learning that three Maji had come from the East seeking the new king of the Jews, King Herod of Judea ordered the killing of all the young boys in Bethlehem just to be safe. Sixteen centuries later both the English Parliament (1647) and the Puritan city of Boston (1659) outlawed Christmas altogether, denouncing it as “popish.” These acts irritated the more fun-loving working classes, who were deprived of yet another holiday without their consent. France followed suit after its Revolution in 1789 and –  in one of the earliest examples of wokeism – renamed the traditional “three kings cake” the “equality cake.”

I say Merry Christmas because that is the tradition in which I was raised. For most of this country’s history, Christianity has operated as a kind of state religion, whose power and pervasiveness have overwhelmed other faiths. It’s time to move on – or at least to read again the First Amendment, which begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Despite 235 years of litigation, those words still seem straightforward to me.

So when I say Merry Christmas to a Moslem or a Jew or an atheist, I’m not sticking my figurative thumb in their eye. I’m celebrating the season in my way, and I hope they will do the same to me. It’s no coincidence that many religions have important festivals at this time of year, when the darkest days of winter herald the coming light, when death foretells rebirth. Isn’t that what we are really celebrating on this earth at this time? And isn’t the diversity of those celebrations a reason for rejoicing?

Merry Christmas should be a greeting, not a weapon.

And so, as Fred said to his uncle Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:

“But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time when it has come round, — not only its religious part, but everything else — as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow travelers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say yes to Christmas!”

“And so, as Tiny Tim said, 'A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, everyone!’”

Beauty

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, —that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 

— John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

The last act of my first and only live performance of Tristan and Isolde was nearing its end, and I had grown restless. There is not a lot of leg room at the Metropolitan Opera House, especially in the cheap seats (which, by the way, are not cheap), and Richard Wagner’s opera about love and death was almost four hours old. And then came “Der Liebestod,” the famous aria in which Isolde sings over Tristan’s dead body and then dies herself as the curtain comes down.

I was blown away. The aria is 18 minutes long, and as I sat listening, my knees stopped aching and my body stopped twitching. Even though I am tone deaf, I had never heard such beauty as this music. After sitting in stunned silence for a few minutes, I joined the rest of the audience in a long standing ovation.

The composer of “Der Liebestod” was a terrible human being, a virulent antisemite who, in his essay, “Jewishness in Music,” railed against Jewish artists for degrading European culture. Fifty years after his death, he would become Hitler’s favorite composer.

This contradiction has presented a problem for many, especially in Wagner’s homeland. In a New York Times review of a Wagner exhibit in Berlin (“Germany Reckons with Wagner: Cultural Jewel, or National Shame?”), the critic, Ben Miller, leads with, “Few composers inspire such a mix of appreciation and disgust as Richard Wagner.” How can a person create such achingly beautiful music, while simultaneously espousing such vile opinions? How can a virulent anti-Semite have also composed “Der Liebestod,” which made me cry the first time I heard it?

We all know of artists who are mean-spirited, cantankerous, egotistical. Picasso comes to mind, as does Hemingway, as not especially nice people. Ezra Pound was a narcissist and psychopath who praised both eugenics and the Holocaust. Norman Mailer almost stabbed his wife to death. The list goes on and on. In fact, it may well be longer than the list of sympathetic artists. And while it shouldn’t be surprising that geniuses are complicated and often ill-tempered, I like to think that beauty comes from a fundamentally good heart.

We live in world where new atrocities are uncovered almost daily, where nastiness is admired and meanness is too often mistaken for strength, where bullies masquerade as saviors. None of this is new, of course, but I want to believe that art offers an alternative – a more uplifting – view. That’s why one of the first acts of dictators after seizing power is to silence the artists – as if beauty itself were subversive of autocratic rule. Which I believe it to be.

And that brings me back to Richard Wagner. I will never know how a person with such venom in his soul could produce such beautiful music. This business of good and evil, it seems, is more complicated than it might at first appear. But I do believe this: that the world needs beauty, perhaps now more than ever.

Ladies Day

It could have happened like this:
Imagine it’s Ladies Day at Mar-a-Lago, and the Big Donors are handing out what we used to call the spoils [1] to reward “the ladies” for their service to the GOP. Let’s listen in.

 – First up is Elsie Stefanik.
– I think it’s Elise. What about the UN? She lives in New York, so she won’t have to commute. [2]
– Great idea. Remember when Khruschev banged his shoe on the desk there? That’s the kind of thing Steffy’ll do. Plus, she went to Harvard.
– We don’t talk about that anymore.
– Neither does Harvard.

– Tulsi Gabbard. What do we know about her?
– She was smart enough to get out of the Democrat party.
– Well then, let’s give her intelligence!
– Central or National?
– What’s the difference?
– How do I know? Let’s give her National. It sounds more important.

– Kimberly Guilfoyle.
– This one’s a little tricky. The Trumps don’t want her around, especially now that Junior is dating a debutante.
– She’s not a debutante. She’s 38.
– Young enough to be Kimberly’s daughter.
– Here’s what an anonymous source told People magazine: [He reads] "Kim is not a nice person and always wants the limelight. Don and Kim are over but they are going to offer her some kind of an administrative position so she will be happy." Apparently, “she loves the power and lifestyle.”
– So, we need to get her far away from here. But where?
– Greece is available.
– Great. Let’s get her on the phone.

– Hi, Kimberly, this is the Big Donors calling. We’re discussing jobs in the Trump administration . . . and you’re getting Greece. How’s that sound?
– I’m getting Grease?!! Thanks, Big Donors. I am over the moon! [Call ends]
– Oh, I’m going to be a star! Wikipedia says that “Grease was a raunchy, raw, aggressive, vulgar show.” It sounds so perfect. [She starts singing “Summer Nights,” imagining herself as Sandy in a revival of the Broadway hit.]

Then Don Junior posted on X: "I am so proud of Kimberly. She loves America and she always has wanted to serve the country as an Ambassador. She will be an amazing leader for America First." [3]

– Wait a minute. They meant Greece, the country?!! The place with all those ruins and Aristotles? [4] Damn those homonyms!

And thus, another highly qualified ambassador is appointed to represent America First.

[1] In 1883, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act replaced the old “spoils system” with the “merit system,” which was intended to be untainted by partisan politics. It’s now known as “the deep state,” and Project 2025 promises to get rid of it.
[2] She lives in Schuylerville in Northern Saratoga County.
[3] Athens is 5,782 miles from Palm Beach.
[4] Presumably, the philosopher and Jackie O’s second husband.

I Beg Your Pardon

During Joe Biden’s first three-and-a-half years in office, I thought he was a very good president. I saw all the polls that continually showed his approval ratings in the cellar, but I admired him: for picking up the pieces after four divisive years of Donald Trump’s presidency; for stoking the economy while cushioning the landing from inevitable inflation (which resulted in a 54% increase in the Dow Jones Industrial Average); for adding a record 14.6 million jobs in his first three years; for championing labor rights and encouraging union efforts; for pushing for environmental protections and tackling climate change; for seeking to bring Americans together instead of trying to drive us apart.

As important to me as any of those accomplishments was the clear indication – I thought it was a pledge – that Biden intended to serve a single term, using his four years to stabilize the country and then stepping aside for the next generation.

His decision to run again seemed more about his own needs than the those of the country. I get that. We old people don’t like to admit when it’s time to let go.

So too with the pardon of his son, Hunter. The president speaks almost solely in personal terms. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery.”

I get that, too. My children are the center of our universe, and I will do anything to protect them. Moreover, Trump makes no secret of his commitment to revenge and retribution. He, too, is driven by the personal, and his vendettas are a serious threat, not just to Hunter Biden, but to the country.

But what about the president’s pledges that he would not pardon his son? And what about Hunter’s responsibility? He traded on his father’s name for years and made millions of dollars to fuel his addictions. Why has the White House never addressed what sems like a powerful form of enabling? Hunter Biden was indicted by the Justice Department and convicted by a jury of his peers. Doesn’t that count for something?

And what of all the others who spoke up for their country? I think, above all, of Alexander Vindman, who stood up and told the truth when Trump was still in office, for which both he and his twin brother, Yevgeny, who had done nothing, were frog marched out of their offices. It’s hard to think they are not on the inauguration day hit list.

I wish Hunter Biden well. He has had too many tragedies in his life. But his latest troubles are not just a family affair. They have transcended the personal and entered the public realm. In so doing, they have jeopardized this country’s social and legal fabric. Does Hunter owe the country nothing in return?

And finally, what of our obligations to those threatened with persecution simply for following their conscience? Blanket pardons are not a substitute for the courage to stand up to injustice.

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” - Robert Frost

My last post got me thinking about borders, which, along with inflation, was a main driver in last month’s election.

But what exactly is a border?

According to National Geographic, “A border is a real or artificial line that separates geographic areas. Borders are political boundaries [that] separate countries, states, provinces, counties, cities, and towns. A border outlines the area that a particular governing body controls.” However, “borders change over time” through conquest, peaceful sale or trade, or international agreements.

Ever since the first humans climbed down from trees for good, we have been wanderers. We have also been settlers. And we have carried those conflicting needs with us as we walked from southern Africa to Patagonia. Hewing mostly to a coastal route – which Spencer Wells described as “a sort of a prehistoric superhighway” – this remarkable journey took between 60,000 and 115,000 years, which I realize is not a particularly precise number; but it’s a very long way.

As we came to inhabit every part of this earth, all the other species learned a painful lesson: there is no stopping us. What the March 2006 issue of National Geographic proclaimed, “the greatest journey ever told” is also the story of how hard we have been on the earth and our cohabitants.

While our wandering ancestors set boundaries for settlement and protection, the concept of fixed borders drawn on a map developed much later – probably with the rise of nation-states in Europe 300-500 years ago. These borders were meant to impose order, both externally, by protecting the state from invasion, and internally, by creating a sense of shared nationality among those inside. Today, as national borders have become increasingly porous, they are ever more stridently defended. A nation, we are told, requires strong borders.

It might be time to rethink that.

First of all, although modern borders often conform to a geographic or physical feature, such as a river or sea, they are, in the end, lines on a map drawn by humans, often in the aftermath of war.

Therefore, they are not permanent, even though they may last a long time. Consider some of the history’s monumental efforts to maintain them:

  • After WWI, the French built the Maginot Line to impede a future German invasion. Unfortunately, the Germans not gone around I, and six weeks later, they marched into Paris.

  • What’s left of the Great Wall of China is now a tourist attraction.

  • The Berlin Wall lasted barely 30 years.

  • Then there’s the border between North and South Korea. Known as the Demilitarized Zone, it is, in fact, “the most heavily militarized border in the world.”

The purpose of the Korean border is not just to keep some people out; it is to keep other people in. How often have we seen that in history? – in Europe’s ghettos, in South Africa’s townships, in our Jim Crow south, where the walls were often figurative but no less real. Such borders are brutal, but they are not permanent.

In today’s world, borders seem everywhere under siege. Imperialists like Putin and Xi blow through them. Neither Hamas not Netanyahu show them much respect. For multi-national corporations and industrial agriculture, borders are at best an inconvenience. Facebook’s algorithms don’t know what they are.

For many Americans, our border with Mexico is sacrosanct. Not so much with Mexico’s border, even though, of course, it’s the same border.

As human history has demonstrated over and over again, you may slow, but you will not stop, the movement of people who are desperate.

Therefore, you cannot solve problems at the border without addressing their underlying causes . . . on both sides of the line – for a border, by definition, is a shared endeavor. As President Claudia Sheinbaum wrote to President-elect Donald Trump, you aren’t the only one with a border problem; we’ve got one, too.

The time has come to rethink the whole concept of borders in our interdependent and interconnected world, whose endless diversity should be calling us out instead of walling us in.

Bluster, Guns and Tariffs - or how not to solve the crises at the border

This morning Perspectives presents a guest columnist, although the writer is unaware of that fact – for I have shamelessly appropriated a letter that Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo sent to Donald Trump in response to his Nov. 25th posting on Truth Social:

"On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders.” The tariffs, he said, will remain in place until all fentanyl trafficking and migration have ended. At last, we have the kind of no-nonsense toughness required to solve the crisis at our southern border.

It should also be a busy first day – for as the president-elect told Sean Hannity, January 20th will be his only day as a dictator.

Dear President-elect Donald Trump,

I am writing to you in response to your statement on Monday, November 25, regarding immigration, fentanyl trafficking, and tariffs.

You are probably not aware that Mexico has developed a comprehensive policy to assist migrants from different parts of the world who cross our territory and are destined for the southern border of the United States of America. As a result, and according to figures from your country's Border Patrol and Customs ( CBP ), encounters at the border between Mexico and the United States have been reduced by 75% from December 2023 to November 2024. By the way, half of those who arrive do so through a legally granted appointment by the United States program called CBP1, for these reasons migrant caravans no longer arrive at the border. Even so, it is clear that we must jointly arrive at another model of labor mobility that is necessary for your country and to address the causes that lead families to leave their places of origin out of necessity. If a percentage of what the United States allocates to war is dedicated to the construction of peace and development, the mobility of people will be fundamentally addressed.

On the other hand, and for humanitarian reasons, we have always expressed Mexico's willingness to prevent the fentanyl epidemic from continuing in the United States, which is also a problem of consumption and public health in the country. So far this year, the Mexican Armed Forces and the Attorney General's Office have seized tons of different types of drugs, 10,340 weapons, and arrested 15,640 people for violence related to drug trafficking. A constitutional reform is in the process of being approved in the Legislative Branch of my country to declare the production, distribution, and marketing of fentanyl and other synthetic drugs a serious crime without the right to bail. However, it is public knowledge that chemical precursors enter Canada, the United States, and Mexico illegally from Asian countries, for which international collaboration is urgently needed.

You should also be aware of the illegal arms trafficking that comes to my country from the United States. 70% of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country. We do not produce the weapons, we do not consume synthetic drugs. Unfortunately, we are the ones who die from crime to meet the demand for drugs in your country. President Trump, it is not with threats or tariffs that we will address the migration phenomenon or drug use in the United States. Cooperation and mutual understanding are required to address these great challenges. One tariff will be followed by another in response, and so on until we put common companies at risk. For example, the main exporters from Mexico to the United States are General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford Motor Company, which came to Mexico 80 years ago. Why impose a tax that puts them at risk? It is not acceptable and would cause inflation and job losses for the United States and Mexico.

I am convinced that North America's economic strength lies in maintaining our commercial partnership, so that we can continue to be more competitive against other economic blocs. I believe that dialogue is the best path to understanding, peace and prosperity for our nations. I hope that our teams can meet soon.

Sincerely,

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo
Constitutional President of the United Mexican States

This seems like a cliché of an exchange between a Third World autocrat and an enlightened First World leader, except that somehow the roles seem to have gotten reversed. And we learn that there is not just one border crisis, but two. For thanks in no small part to its northern neighbor, Mexico has a border crisis of its own.

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who became Mexico’s first-ever woman president last October, has a PhD in energy engineering and is an expert on climate change. In addition to being Hispanic, she is also Jewish, the granddaughter of immigrants from eastern Europe. To me, she personifies the value of diversity.

Enough with the “mea culpas”

I suspect I’m not the only one who is “consuming” less news these days. For me it started well before Election Day, as I grew weary under the barrage of projections and poll dissections that passed as news. I don’t read newspapers to predict the future but to understand what is happing in the present in order to prepare myself for what the future may bring. The future will unfold on its own terms.

But I have picked up a few story lines about the last election.

One is that the results were all the Democrats’ fault, and consequently the losers need to engage in a thorough self-examination. (In some totalitarian cultures, the term is self-criticism.) As far as I can glean from the unending wave of mea culpas in the press, they have done so in spades. An overarching theme of this analysis is that Democrats have become a party of elites who look down on working-class Americans. The most oft-cited proof of this disdain is Hillary Clinton’s comment about a “basket of deplorables.” She made that remark in 2016, and it has been trotted out ever since. Yet, eight years later, in the election that just passed, we heard immigrants constantly referred to as “vermin” and political opponents derided as “scum.” On the table of insults, I do not know where vermin and scum rank in comparison to a basket of deplorables, but I do know this: those words were not plucked at random out of thin air; they have a long, ugly, and dangerous history of targeting – and then dehumanizing – particular groups; and those at whom they are directed need to pay attention. So do the rest of us. All such categorizations are wrong, but these two words should not be tolerated from anybody, let alone the president-elect.

Sometimes I feel myself in a kind of time capsule in which I am trying to delay a future that seems poised to change this country forever. Unfortunately, at my age time does not slow down for me. And while I don’t know what will happen after January 20th, the incoming administration has hardly been bashful about proclaiming its plans. As each day brings more appointments to major posts – Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy (and Dr. Oz) overseeing the nation’s health, Fox News pundits moving to Defense, Transportation, and Jerusalem – it sems like we are watching a giant nose thumbing at America.

And the guardrails on which we have long depended, from the separation of powers to a free press, are weakening. To my mind, the mainstream media did a credible job covering a difficult election. The problem – and it’s a serious one – was that the real fake news (if you’ll pardon my oxymoron) sought to obliterate the truth. For more on this, please see Michael Tomasky’s must-read article in The New Republic.

This election made clear the dissatisfaction of millions of Americans with the state and direction of the country. They voted on their sentiments, which is how it works in a democracy, and I accept that vote. But in this democracy, the opposition also has a critical role to play and the right to express itself. As a member of the opposition – and far more importantly, as the grandfather of eight (almost nine) grandchildren – I have no intention of forfeiting either that role or that right.

Rising from the doldrums on the South Side of Chicago

The only blues I’m singing is the Chicago Blues.

Here’s a concept: Organize and train a group of summer interns made up of high school and college kids and send them into some of Chicago’s poorest, toughest neighborhoods to ask the residents if they’d like to vote to raise their taxes.

This sounds like a recipe for getting a door slammed in your face. But it worked again this Election Day, when two neighborhoods on the city’s South Side overwhelmingly approved a modest tax increase to fund free community mental health clinics in perpetuity. They are the 7th and 8th neighborhoods to approve the clinics. The goal is to have one clinic in each of Chicago’s 19 neighborhoods by 2030.

Chicago began dismantling mental health programs in the city in the 1990s, primarily to save money but also, I believe, because the stigma of mental health persists across this country. How often do we still hear real sickness dismissed as “psychosomatic?” How often are we told to “get over it?”

Ikeeta Jackson, a single mother of two daughters, would like to disagree. “I believe the topic of mental health is still thought of as taboo and must be perceived as just as important as physical health,” she wrote.

“Especially since the Pandemic, I have seen my [South Side] community face the ever-increasing presence of drug and alcohol addiction, gang activity, unemployment, and the challenges of food deserts. . . .I see the effects [of] car jackings and gun violence.” Trauma, fear, depression sit on every street corner and lurk behind every locked door. It is little wonder that every one of the eight neighborhoods approved its mental-health referendum by margins ranging from 74 to 92%.

The journey has been neither easy nor straight. It began in 1991 when Mayor Richard M. Daley unveiled a plan to close the city’s mental-health centers. Twenty years (!) later, two community organizations finally convinced the state legislature to pass a bill enabling the creation of mental health centers that are wholly initiated, funded and overseen by the community.

At a time when public faith in our political system is trending toward non-existent, this program is a reminder of the power of democracy. The money is raised through a local tax referendum approved by the community and spent entirely within the neighborhood. Services are available to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. A committee of residents oversees the clinic, whose funding is ensured in perpetuity. Everything is fully transparent. This is not a government handout. Not one dime of the tax revenue goes downtown or downstate.

Although this program is unique to Chicago, I think it can be a model for communities across the country. It is a story of building hope from the grassroots up – over 30 years – one step at a time.

Check it out:

• Institute for Community Empowerment
• Coalition to Save Our Mental Health Centers

Disclosure: Bob Gannett, the executive director of ICE, is a friend of mine, and I serve on the project’s Leadership Council.

Deportee

“All they will call you will be Deportee” (Woody Guthrie, 1948)

Peter Rousmaniere has been writing about immigration issues for 20 year, posting regularly on his blog, http://www.workingimmigrants.com. While it is now clear – particularly with the appointments of Tom Homan as “Border Czar and Stephen Miller in the White House – that Donald Trump fully intends to follow through on his campaign rhetoric of mass deportations, Peter believes that won’t happen “because it will within weeks turn into a debacle.”

For one thing, the press and public interest groups will expose the human suffering, especially the separation of children from their parents. More significantly, the cost to the economy will quickly be felt, and business leaders and the farm lobby, who depend on both skilled and unskilled immigrant labor, will make their voices heard. The ironic result could be a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

But what, I asked Peter, of the pain involved in getting us from here to there? What of the damage to so many lives, not to mention to what's left of our own values?

He shared with me a letter he had sent to the minister of the Unitarian church of Woodstock Vermont, of which he is a member.

“Dear Leon

“I have a suggestion for Unitarians with respect to Donald Trump’s stated goal of mass deportations.

“Unitarian congregations can ally themselves with organizations that work directly with undocumented persons. An example is Migrant Justice in Burlington. I expect there are over a hundred groups in the U.S. who are very aware of their local unauthorized population.

“If someone is arrested by ICE, Unitarians can protest loudly and persistently. Quite possibly the arrested individual has a U.S. born child, hence an American citizen. Very many unauthorized persons have been in the U.S. for over a decade and do necessary work in their communities. These attachments can be highlighted. The media will respond.

“This kind of fast reaction strategy is roughly similar to how northern states organizations responded pre-Civil War when an escaped enslaved person was arrested for the purpose of returning the individual to slavery.”

Here is a simple strategy with almost universal application. Churches have often been in the forefront of immigration issues, ranging from welcoming Ukrainian refugees from the war in eastern Europe to sheltering the homeless and vulnerable across America. For many of them this is the message of the Sermon on the Mount, especially its first 12 verses, known as “the Beatitudes,”, which proclaim a religion of mercy, rather than judgment. And think of the countless other groups and organizations that have long been involved with working for years with migrants, immigrants, and other vulnerable peoples, who stand ready to help.

Now is a time for practical solutions. Almost all of us know someone who could be swept up in the promised dragnets. And here is a way we can help.

Unfortunately, this is not a new issue in America. It goes back to our roots . . . to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, which Trump has said he will invoke to “put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell OUT OF OUR COUNTRY” . . . to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 . . . to the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti in 1921 . . . to the plane crash at Los Gatos Canyon in 1948.

Here is Woody Guthrie’s tribute to those who died at Los Gatos . . . and millions of others . . . as sung by the Highwaymen.

That’s America, with a “c”

In the late spring of 1969 at U.S. Army Europe headquarters in Heidelberg, West Germany, a young second lieutenant, not long outside the ivied walls of Harvard College, was summoned into the office of his company commander. With the inferno in Vietnam and the growing unrest in cities and campuses across America, the major was concerned about the lieutenant’s attitude. Did he, perhaps, sympathize with the protestors? He called him over to the window, which looked out on the entrance to the headquarters, and put his arm on his shoulder. “Love that flag, boy,” he said. “Love that flag.”

We Americans have a fetish for our flag. We fly them by the dozens in small towns across the country. They shine on the lapels of politicians from the county seat to the halls of Congress. You must fold it in a certain way. You cannot let it touch the ground. Government agencies are prohibited from purchasing a flag that was not made in the United States from materials grown or produced in the United States. Our flag flies at every sports event from Little League to the Super Bowl, and woe to him who fails to stand at attention when the band strikes up the Star Spangled Banner. Schoolchildren pledge allegiance to it every morning.

And yet, we have the Constitutional right to burn it. This, to put it mildly, is not popular with a lot of people. All 50 states have adopted resolutions demanding that Congress pass a Constitutional amendment to criminalize burning our flag. Currently, a proposed amendment reads in full: “Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”

Yet it was Antonin Scalia, the most conservative member of the Supreme Court, who cast the fifth and deciding vote that declared burning the American flag a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment. The case was Texas v. Johnson, the year was 1989. Even Scalia wasn’t thrilled about the outcome: "If it were up to me,” he said later, “I would put in jail every sandal-wearing, scruffy-bearded weirdo who burns the American flag. But I am not king.”

Where else would that happen? This election is, among other things, to ensure that it continues to happen here.

So, here we are, Election Day Eve 2024, and none of us has a clue about what will happen tomorrow. Donald Trump has promised his followers that, if he wins, there will never again be such uncertainty on Election Day – which is one more reason to vote for Kamala Harris.

We are told that this is the most divisive presidential election since 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected with 39.7% of the vote in a four-man race. He handily won the Electoral College, however, with 180 of the 303 electoral votes cast – this despite the fact that he got no (zero) votes in 10 Southern states because no ballots carrying his name were distributed in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Texas. There is much talk these days about getting rid of the Electoral College, but I’m glad they still had it in 1860.

“The United States is a nation founded on both an ideal and a lie,” Nicole Hannah-Jones wrote in the introductory chapter to the 1619 Project. The land of liberty was built on a foundation of slavery. That is what makes this country such a complicated place. It’s what makes patriotism a far more complex emotion than just saluting the flag and falling in line. This election, I believe, is about embracing the ideal. It is also about embracing the lie. This is who we are.

That is why I am voting for Kamala Harris.

“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.”

Donald Trump, of course, is not the first American to use his public office as a private trough, and he will surely not be the last (although he does seem unique in the extent, vulgarity and avariciousness of his greed). Why, just last summer – July 16th, to be precise – a jury of his peers convicted Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) of bribery, extortion, honest services fraud, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy. He is scheduled to be sentenced in January.

My all-time favorite, though, is George Washington Plunkitt.

Plunkitt, whose words of wisdom the journalist William O. Riordon collected in a wonderful little book called Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, was a New York City Democratic politician who held a variety of offices for his entire adult life. Indeed, writes Riordon, “In 1870, through a strange combination of circumstances, he held the places of Assemblyman, Alderman, Police Magistrate and County Supervisor and drew three salaries at once – a record unexampled in New York politics.” He was 27 years old.

Beginning as a cart driver and then a butcher boy, he quickly became a millionaire. He had his hands in just about every cashbox he could fit them, but his major source of lucre was real estate. Some things never change.

Plunkitt lays out his philosophy right at the beginning: Chapter 1, “Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft:”

“Everybody is talkin’ these days about Tammany men growin’ rich on graft, but nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft. There’s all the difference in the world between the two. Yes, many of our men have grown rich in politics. I have myself. I’ve made a big fortune out of the game, and I’m getting’ richer every day, but I’ve not gone in for dishonest graft – blackmailin’ gamblers, saloonkeepers, disorderly people, etc. . . .There’s honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works.”

He might learn, he explains, that the city is about to build a park or some other public improvement, and so he quietly buys up the all the land he can get his hands on in the proposed neighborhood – land, he is quick to point out, that nobody had the least interest in before. “Ain’t it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that’ honest graft. . . . and I’m lookin’ for it every day in the year.”

I could go on. In 1883 President Chester A. Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which required most federal government jobs to be awarded on merit, not political patronage. Plunkitt called the new law, “the curse of the nation. . . . What’s the use of workin’ for your country anyhow,” he asked? “There’s nothin’ in the game.” One of Donald Trump’s primary goals is to gut the Civil Service.

Tammany Hall was a thoroughly corrupt machine. And yet it did much good. Its base was the city’s millions of poor immigrants, whom it worked to assimilate, employ, house, and protect from the financial, industrial, and discriminatory excesses of the late 19th century. Plunkitt railed against the Civil Service Act as much because of its economic impact on his constituents as because of its limits on his “opportunities.” For him, “honest graft,” an oxymoron if ever there was one, meant using his position to improve the lives of his constituents as well as his own.

That piece seems to be missing from the former president’s repertoire. Plunkitt might admire Trump’s chutzpah for hawking the Bible for $99, but he would be appalled watching him keep all the money for himself. Plunkitt valued the lives of the poor and the immigrants, not just for their patronage, but because he was one of them. And George Washington Plunkitt, unlike Donald Trump, could make you laugh.

• For those who asked about the 442nd Infantry Regiment, the Nisei unit I mentioned in my last post, I recommend Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown (who also wrote The Boys in the Boat).

First They Came . . .

Martin Niemöller, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, was a Lutheran pastor who initially supported Adolph Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. A Christian nationalist and antisemite, he soon turned against the Nazis when he saw that they were completely serious about rounding up their political opponents and purging undesirable groups. He was arrested and imprisoned, first at Sachsenhausen, where the early gas chambers were designed and tested, and then at Dachau, until his liberation in 1945 by the U.S. 7th Army.

It all happened so quickly. In federal elections held on July 31, 1932, the Nazis won 37% of the popular vote, giving them the most seats in the Reichstag, although far short of a majority. New elections were called for November 6th. Although the Nazis remained the largest party, their share of the vote actually declined by four percentage points. Time to act . . . they seized power, and on January 30, 1933, made Adolph Hitler the chancellor of Germany. There would be no more elections. Fewer than three months later, on March 22nd, Dachau opened for business. Its initial purpose was to imprison Hitler’s political opponents.

Twelve years later, on April 29, 1945, the sprawling concentration camp was liberated by members of 552nd Field Artillery Battalion of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. It is one of those ironies of history that the regiment was a segregated unit composed almost entirely of second-generation Japanese soldiers (Nisei), most of whose families were in internment camps of their own in America. After fighting its way across Europe, the 442nd Infantry remains the most decorated military unit in American history; its soldiers were awarded over 4,000 Purple Hearts and 21 Medals of Honor.

The year after he was liberated, Niemöller wrote his famous poem, “First they came . . .”, an agonizing lament for those, including himself, who had kept silent as the Nazis came to power and immediately set out to purge vulnerable groups.

I have updated his requiem. I pray it is not my epitaph.

First they came for the immigrants,
And I did not speak out – because I am not an immigrant.

Then they came for the people of color,
And I did not speak out – because I am a white man.

Then they came for the lesbians, the gays, the transpeople,
And I did not speak out – because I am straight.

Then they came for those with foreign accents,
And I did not speak out – because I was once an English teacher.

Then they came for the Muslims, and then for the Jews (yes, for both of them),
And I did not speak out – because I am a Christian.

Then they came for the indigent and the homeless,
And I did not speak out – because it was a beautiful afternoon for golf.

Then they came for me,
And who will speak for me?

Donald Trump and his followers characterize the groups in this poem as the problem with America, telling us that these people and their identity politics want to destroy this country. But these groups are America, just as you and I are – at least the America in which I want to live. It takes all of us to weave the fabric of our country. It’s an inspiring vision, and a strong fabric. And we must not shrink from speaking out.

The greatest scene from the greatest movie

“I am shocked, shocked, to find that gambling is going on in there.”

This scene from Casablanca makes me want to stand up and cheer every time I watch it . . . and I have watched it a lot. I especially love the tears in the eyes of the German officer’s “girlfriend” as she defiantly joins in. It is also worth noting that almost all the extras in the movie were themselves actual refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. It had become very hard to get a visa. Today the scene seems particularly apt, a rousing call to stand up.

I hope you enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeFhSzoTuc

This is How it Begins

At the close of the constitutional convention on September 18, 1787, Elizabeth Willing Powel stopped Benjamin Franklin and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic” he replied, “if you can keep it.”

• Two years ago, Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, called Trump’s actions after the 2020 election “treason.” “Get involved,” he exhorted his fellow business leaders, “speak out on issues like the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, the murder of George Floyd, and the widening income gap. . . .If we don’t get this right, the Western world is at risk.”

This month, the most influential banker in America (and a Democrat) is telling people close to him that, while he supports Kamala Harris (and would consider a position in her cabinet), he is not saying so publicly because of his fear that, as president, Trump will retaliate against his bank and his industry.

“First they came for the immigrants,” to borrow from Martin Niemoller’s 1946 requiem to silence, “and I did not speak out because I was not an immigrant. . . .”

• In 2016, the Los Angeles Times endorsed Hillary Clinton for president: “American voters have a clear choice on Nov. 8. We can elect an experienced, thoughtful and deeply knowledgeable public servant or a thin-skinned demagogue who is unqualified and unsuited to be president. . . . Electing Trump could be catastrophic for the nation.”

• Four years later the newspaper endorsed Joe Biden: “Nothing less than the health of our constitutional democracy is at stake. . . .[T]he reelection of this president would be a calamity. . . . . He has pursued policies at home and abroad that have harmed working Americans, exacerbated inequality, weakened the United States and strained America’s alliances.’

• On Oct. 11, Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns the newspaper, told his editorial board, that the Times would not be endorsing any candidate for president. The board had already written its endorsement Kamala Harris.

"Freedom of the press,” A. J. Liebling wrote 64 years ago, “is guaranteed only to those who own one."

• In 2016 The Washington Post endorsed Hillary Clinton: “No, we are not making this endorsement simply because Ms. Clinton’s opponent is dreadful. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is dreadful, that is true — uniquely unqualified as a presidential candidate.”

• In 2020 the paper endorsed Joe Biden because “Democracy is at risk, at home and around the world. The nation desperately needs a president who will respect its public servants; stand up for the rule of law; acknowledge Congress’s constitutional role; and work for the public good, not his private benefit.”

• Last Friday, William Lewis, CEO and publisher, wrote: “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election.”

What happened?

When Trump says “I am your retribution” to his cheering crowds, his words reverberate ominously in the country’s most powerful boardrooms and the editorial rooms of its once-independent newspapers.

I don’t believe that Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, and Patrick Soon-Shiong are any more cowardly than you or I. They have their interests to protect. Their actions affect the lives and livelihoods of millions of people both here and abroad, and Donald Trump is offering them – in the most baldly transactional terms – carrots as well as the stick: deregulation and tax breaks and other incentives that will make their businesses more profitable, even as they make our lives more vulnerable.

But beware the stick. The man who many couldn’t take seriously eight years ago is now intimidating this country into silence. The fear of physical retaliation in the streets, of viral bullying on the Internet, and of using the power of the government to ruin your business and even throw you in jail has done all too quickly what we didn’t think could happen: shut down the voices of dissent.

The most insidious form of censorship is self-censorship.

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Last of a series

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Last of a series

“I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

- Langston Hughes

Quiz Answers

1.     Thames: Looking across Westminster Bridge to Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster, which has been the site of the Houses of Parliament since the 13th century.

2.     Ganges: “Bathing in the Ganges is not only a sacred tradition during Kumbh Mela, but also a daily ritual for about 2 million people. The Ganges River is considered the purest and holiest water in the world. Many believe that a quick dip in its waters can cure any ailment.” On the other hand, “swimming in the Ganges River can be dangerous for several reasons: The Ganges is one of the most polluted rivers in the world. It carries a high level of untreated sewage, industrial waste, and agricultural runoff.”

3.     Mississippi: At 630 feet high, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis is the tallest monument in the United States. Although it looks like one of the rare McDonald‘s single arches, it was designed to symbolize the opening of the West. There are 32 states and two Canadian provinces in the Mississippi’s drainage basin.

4.     Amazon: The Meeting of Waters (Encontro das Águas) is the confluence between the dark Rio Negro and the sandy-colored Amazon at Manaus, Brazil, where the two rivers run side by side for the next six kilometers.

5.     Saint Lawrence: The Chateau Frontenac hotel overlooks the Saint Lawrence in Quebec City. Samuel de Champlain founded the city in 1608, giving a French twist to its Algonquin name.

6.     Loire: From its construction in 1535, the Chateau do Chenonceau in the valley of the Loire River has had a colorful history, Queen Catherine de Medici, widow of Henry II, is said to have “managed France from her study, the Green Cabinet.”

7.     Euphrates: “Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared.” From the Book of Revelation, this is said to be one of the events that foretells the Second Coming.

8.     Rio Grande: Two thoughts: (1) the water in this river is “over-appropriated,” which is a big word for having more claims on the water than there is water in the river; and (2) this river may decide the 2024 presidential election.

9.     Mekong: (1) The world’s largest inland fishery, the Mekong provides 25% of the global freshwater catch and food for tens of millions of people; and (2) it still contains massive amounts of undetonated ordnance from barges that were sunk during the era of the Khmer Rouge and U.S. carpet bombing during the Vietnam War.

10.  Hudson: As an island, Manhattan is by definition surrounded by water. Of its three rivers, only one (the Hudson to the west) is actually a river. The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary, while the Harlem River to the north is a tidal strait. The Hudson River’s source is the wonderfully named “Lake Tear in the Clouds.”

11.  Danube: Listen here to the beautiful Blue Danube waltz by Johann Strauss II.

12.  Schuylkill: This is the famous “Boathouse Row,” a National Historic Landmark, whose 15 boathouses are the hub of U.S. rowing. Jack Kelly, father of Princess Grace who rowed out of the Vesper Boat Club, was the first oarsman to win three Olympic gold medals. A self-made millionaire in the bricklaying business, Kelly’s application to row in the Diamond Challenge Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta was rejected because he had once worked as a “labourer.” His son, Jack, Jr., won the Challenge in 1947.

13.  Yangtze: The Yangtze is the longest river in the world whose flow is contained within a single country. Just below the river’s Three Gorges is the Three Gorges Dam, the largest power station in the world.

14.  Nile: Either the longest or the second-longest river in the world (the Amazon is its competitor), the Nile’s two major tributaries, the Blue Nile and White Nile, meet at Khartoum, from which the river flows north until it reaches the Mediterranean Sea at Alexandria.

15.  Colorado: America’s most endangered river, the Colorado provides water to 40 million people in the U.S. and Mexico. It has not regularly reached the Gulf of California since 1960.

16.  Columbia: “The Columbia River Gorge is a spectacular river canyon, 80 miles long and up to 4,000 feet deep, that meanders past cliffs, spires, and ridges set against nearby peaks of the Cascade Mountain Range.” In 1986 it became the second National Scenic Area in the U.S.

17.  Zambezi: “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” asked Henry M. Stanley in 1871, after tracking down the Scottish physician, clergyman, and explorer who had been missing in Africa for over four years. David Livingstone was the first European to see the Mosi-oa-Tunya ("the smoke that thunders"), the world's largest sheet of falling water, which he more prosaically renamed Victoria Falls in honor of his queen. He eventually mapped most of the Zambezi in the belief that abolishing the African slave trade depended on the river’s development as a Christian commercial highway into the interior of the continent.

18.  Seine: In 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and her ashes thrown into the Seine. In 1803 Robert Fulton first successfully tested his steamboat offshore from the Tuileries Garden. On Feb. 14, 1887, Le Temps published this protest: “We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower.”

19.  Volga: Mother Volga, as it is called in Russian folklore, is the longest river in Europe. In Cecil B. DeMille’s 1926 film, The Volga Boatmen, Feodor, the heroic boatman was played by William Boyd, who became better known as Hopalong Cassidy in the long-running film, radio, and television series. The painting “Barge Haulers on the Volga,” portrays actual boatmen the artist. Ilya Repin, saw on his travels through Russia.

20.  Susquehanna: On March 28, 1979, Three Mile Island on the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, PA, was site of the worst nuclear power plant accident in American history.

Winners

Two perfect scores, Peter Willad and Harry Hull, were recorded on the rivers quiz. The median score was 15 correct, and the most missed rivers were the Amazon, the Yangtze, and the Volga. Thank you for playing.

This concludes the series on rivers and water. Your feedback, suggestions, and comments immeasurably enriched this series. Thank you for staying the course. I am going to take some time off to attend to other things and to think about the future of the blog. I have enjoyed writing the two recent series, and I’m thinking of future ones on “Immigration” and “Individualism and Community.” I’m also considering other approaches. As always, I am grateful for your thoughts.

Jamie

A River and Its Water: Reclaiming the Commons - Part 44

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44th of a series

“From history’s dawn to this morning’s, wells and streams, rivers and lakes, have meant life. Every great civilization has grown up around water. From the Ganges to the Mississippi, the Amazon to the Zaire, the history of rivers is the history of us. And there is no more unifying or naturally democratic force. Creeks formed in the highlands of every continent gather strength in their journeys to the sea. And as they flow, channeled by swerve of shore and bend of bay, they cleanse, nourish, and refresh all people – in metropolis and village, from the millionaire to the child who knows no other cup but the human hand. Today, this irreplaceable resource is in irrefutable danger. For too many, the liquid we cannot live without bears within it the cause of illness, even death. It doesn’t have to be.”

- U. S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

Name that River

A Quiz: Many rivers are recognizable to us, either because of some familiar natural feature or, more likely, as a consequence of human intervention. Here are images of 20 well-known rivers, from the Amazon to the Zambezi, and a corresponding list of names. After all these weeks, see how many rivers you can identify. Answers and winners will be announced on Thursday.

To take the quiz, please visit this link.